Day Trip
by three times over
Summary: A bunch of trolls go out on a boat. Rated T for swarrs.
1. Team A

I wasn't planning to upload this piece, being convinced that it was unsalvageable; it suffered from that all-too-common bastardisation of troll dialogue, which I will now term _Too Many Fucks Syndrome_. But I cleared most of that out and it turns out there's a few gems of writing hidden beneath. Some TMFS still stubbornly remains attached though, like a barnacle. My hope is that it doesn't render the whole thing unstomachable.  
I used to write in a very concise style, so there was an attempt here at injecting some flourish. It's alright, but I didn't seem to understand it required more than just moving around the punctuation. Surprised at some of the in-comic details I included, though to be fair, they were probably significant at the time. (Other details are missing - for one, I suppose I should be using the term _swimbeasts_ - but I feel there's a line at which I might as well stop.)

Wasn't happy with any method of presenting Sollux's pronunciation, so I settled on a mixture that felt right to me. It's the same method I use for my Homestar Runner fanfictions, albiet far less consistent.  
It should be noted I didn't have a clue how to write most of these characters, and probably still don't. Eh, I'm doing better than at least one fan out there.

Written late 2010 - mid 2011, age 16 or almost that old. This was back when these characters were approximately the most important.

/-/-

* * *

The door to the captain's bridge swings open; a nubby-horned troll strides through to the deck. He's been pacing back and forth for several hours now. The trolls outside idly turn their heads towards him; he gives them death glares: "Hey, shitheads, got anything yet?"

"Karkles I think it's about time someone swaps shifts," Terezi cackles, loud and gleeful; she rises from her beach chair, taps her fishing rod. "Talk to the alien fish instead of us; maybe they're attracted to your lunatic rage! _Hehehehehe!_" Her shrieks pierce the air, and Karkat growls, shoving her away from her post. "Aww, did I _offend_ you? Poor little _wriggler_! Anyone know how Gamzee's doing?"

On the other side of the boat, Kanaya shakes her head. "He hasn't surfaced for a while now; perhaps he has chanced upon the school of aquatic creatures we are looking for," she muses. Tavros is equally uncertain; he stands up, unsteady on the boat's rocking surface, and leans over to the sparkling waters below.

"G... Gamzee?" he calls. "Come back up if you, uhh... see me?" He tries to wave to the ocean, beckoning towards their ship, but there is no response.

Karkat twitches as he sees the display: "What do you think _that'll_ do?! We'll get Sollux to find him," he mutters, sprinting back into the bridge, door flapping as he enters; in mere seconds it's sent swinging open again, the two shouting at each other as they storm out.

"No I abtholutely cannot fucking _'mind detect'_ people," Sollux snarls to his associate. "You may thlightly have my powers wrong, in fact you may have _everybody'th_ powers wrong."

"Are you kidding me? I'm like, _a hundred-fucking-percent_ positive you've done it before!"

"Get your percentages checked, you useleth thit!"

"They've _all_ been checked, and they all return a big fucking 'DING-DING-DING! Karkat, yes you're absolutely right, if the emaciated theoric won't even lift a finger the least he could do is _cooperate with the rest of us_'."

"I think I'd _know_ if I had a fucking _Gamzee-radar_. Your notions of believable thiionic prowess theem woefully mithcalibrated, much like the retht of your thitty programming."

"YOU DID _NOT_ JUST SAY THAT! _YOU HAVE CROSSED A LINE!_"

Terezi starts to scream with laughter, the perfect maniacal backdrop to the inane debate. Tavros glances at Kanaya; she just shrugs, returns to her fishing. He starts to do the same, when he sees a faint, familiar sihouette in the water. The boy grins; he knows who it is.

"HEY motherfuckers so I forgot how to swim for a bit but it's all good now," Gamzee calls out as his head bursts through the water. His makeup's washed off, leaving pale white stains on his face. "Holy shit, you _have_ to see what is down here, there's all these crazy tiny creatures and they ain't deadly at all; I'm just like fuckin' hell ya'll wanna hang out a lil'? and then they just _zip around everywhere, AT THE SAME TIME_ you don't even know, I was tripping out _hard_ -"

"Gamzee you stupid piece of _SHIT_!" Karkat splutters, running up to the boat's edge. "We asked you to tell us where the fish were, not to hold a fucking _miracle party_ down there! Jegus I bet you scared _all of them off_ with your hideous _face_!"

"Bro you just gotta chillax a lil', I totally saw where they went. They're just right over..." The troll dives back underwater, only to come back up a short while later. "... Never mind, looks like they got... a lil' fucked up."

"_What?_" Sollux yells. "Gamzee we will _very much_ mind. _Get out of the water!_" Kanaya, in the meantime, runs over to the ship's rickety rope ladder, which descends all the way down to the water.

"Over here, Gamzee!" The troll snaps back to attention upon hearing his name; he thankfully spots the ladder, and kicks his way towards it. When he finally manages to climb onboard, Terezi and Tavros are there to wrap him up in a towel.

"What... what the heck happened?" Tavros stutters, the most visibly nervous.

"More importantly," interrrupts Karkat from across the deck, "where the fuck's your _CLOTHES_?!"

"Oh, my clothes," he says, apparently just noticing. "Fuckin', they were... hard to swim in."

"At least you still have your underwear on!" Terezi grins. "Or is that 'too bad', Karkles?"

"What the _shit_?! Thanks for obliterating the remnants of my _think pan_ -"

"_Thut it_, KK!" Sollux barks. "What did you see? They told us it was _safe_ here!"

"I dunno, there was this one thing like a fish, like all the other fishes, except a lot fuckin' larger," Gamzee frowns. "And it... bit through them."

"_WHAT?!_" everyone shouts, with various levels of 'THE FUCK' attached. Terezi shakes herself out of it. "Exactly how much is 'larger'?"

"No fuckin' idea. Could be two, three times my size."

"That's not too bad," Karkat mutters, "but who knows what it could do? Shit! If we were still in Sburb, there'd be no problem at all -"

Right on cue, the fishing rod next to them tugs slightly.

/-

'AAAAAAAA HOLY _FUCK AAAAAAAAAAAAA_' ends up being an appropriate summary of events: the rod is promptly thrown overboard, and the small ship is steered to shore as fast as everyone can fucking handle. By the time it hits the coastline, everybody is just about ready to fling themselves off, and they do exactly that.

"Wow, that was... intense," Tavros sighs, dropping onto dry sand and rolling onto his back. "Are we, uh... are we sure it was anything like the monsters on Alternia?"

"Tell me, Tavvy," Terezi grins, sitting herself next to him. "Have we seen any silly Earth species _nearly_ as dangerous as that? Of _course_ it was harmless! Hehehehe_HAHAHAHA!_"

"Okay, just _what_ in the everloving nook did you say?" Karkat snarls, last to exit the boat, but first to reach Terezi and furiously press his face against hers. "Why didn't you think of this _earlier_? Why didn't you stop us from toot-tooting _forty fucking minutes_ back to _LAND_?!"

"Because," she smirks, and she accepts his challenge; leaning closer into him, breathing louder, just so he can hear it, and she can smell him tensing up ever-so-slowly, "... Because it's funny!"

"FUCK YOU, TEREZI, _FUCK YOU_," he shrieks, again and again while she just laughs it off as raucously and spine-chillingly as she always does. When he's finally done, he tries to glare at her one last time, before kicking up a few clouds of sand and sulkingly dropping next to Kanaya. While they were arguing, she and Sollux have laid themselves down on the beach as well: a line of grey creatures, alone on the shore.

Kanaya lets Karkat fume for a while before she strikes up conversation. "So, how are you finding dinurnal enterprise so far," she asks, watching the pure-white clouds.

"Oh. You mean... the sun, right?" Karkat falls back onto the sand, looking skywards with her. "I dunno. It's... colourful. I'm sure it's what you're used to."

"Yes but this world is much different," she replies, smiling, knowing. "Not only does it host a myriad of fascinatingly docile creatures, everything down to the smallest specifics are tangibly _foreign_, and even the society the humans have procured for themselves is of infinite interest. Are you not enthralled by this experience as well?"

"There's not that much to it, really," he grumbles, before being subject to her judging stare. "... It's alright."

"That's what I thought," she smiles.

The sun shines brightly as the world floats on by.

"... It _is_ a bit cold, is the only discomfort."

"Kanaya, what. Excuse _us_ if no one else wanted your blistering sun."


	2. Team B

And then, a sequel. I didn't even mean to write this, but when I realised the characters I had left, I couldn't resist. This sorts out any issues with leaving out 'important characters', anyway. (That is, to a point: some are barely present at all, but I couldn't involve them any further without hurting the pacing.) I'm past my phase of experimenting for now; this one's written in the style I'm most familiar with - punchier and briefer - but I'm not expecting anyone to actively notice the difference.  
While I enjoy how Feferi turned out, it bothers me that I didn't catch the whole range of her personality; she very much has a superiority complex that people miss, but again, there was no space to fit it in. Eridan's speech tics, like Sollux's before, have been dropped in essentially whenever I feel like it.  
There is a particular word that will come up that I know people take slight to now, and I do apologise; it _is_ used in-comic though, and really, you'll have to see it as representing the characters and not me.

Made some decisions canon-wise that will probably throw people off. I have a very strong nostalgia for the earlier half of Homestuck, so I'm just going with whatever I think is funniest, most iconic, and simply works out.

This is probably the first thing I've uploaded that was actually written at the time. I'm 18 and a half as of now, to keep my introductions consistent.

/-/-

* * *

"Alright, here we go: the Kickarse Highblood Fish-Catching Expedition!" Vriska hollers to the largely apathetic group in front of her. "Although I'm glad this turned into Highbloods, _plus one_" - she glares at Nepeta - "or _Plus As Many Quadrant-Mates As Equius Can Muster"_ - glares at Aradia.

"I _believe_ I assured you," Equius bristles, rising to full height, "that the expertise these two offer is beyond their station, and furthermore, _independent of relation_ -"

"Equigross, we have already done you a great service, don't push your luck by pretending they have a legitimate reason to be here." Before the hulking troll can bestow his cold retort, she twists away from him and to the remaining crew on board. "Besides, what more help could we possibly need... when we have _these fabulous fishtrolls_, to _nab our whole catch for us!"_ On Vriska's cue Feferi leaps up, generously performing jazz-hands for herself. _Ta-daa._

"Wh-hait, is this really what you dragged us along for?" Eridan bemoans, slouched on one of the small beach chairs he's set up for him and his magenta peer. "You think we'll just use our _fish pow-whers_ to _magically attract_ all Earth marine life? What the hell do you think seatrolls ev-vhen _do?"_

"Fuck's sake, do you think I'm _retarded?"_ Vriska snaps back. "'Course that's not what I'm suggesting! You'll put some backbone into it; do it the old fashioned way - _dive in there_ and herd 'em all up to us."

Feferi suddenly grins with a strange sardonicism, eyeing her associate, sharktooth mouth; then she playfully salutes and shouts an "Aye aye, cap'n!" - as Eridan loses all pompour and sinks further into his chair.

"... I can't swim."

"The fuck did you say?"

"I thought you already knew and - _look_, it's harder than you think!"

"I thought you were _joking!_ Or, I don't know, you don't even know what a joke is -" Vriska gives up, nursing her forehead. "Fine, you can stay up here, supervise the sandwiches." The boat slows to a stop, barely buffeted by the gentle waves. "Peixes, my babe, it's up to you."

The highblood giggles mercilessly and leaps straight overboard; she noiselessly breaches the water, and just as quickly, is gone. "Don't suppose we should've given her more instructions," Vriska frowns. "Eh, she'll be fine. Hey, Aradia! Wanna see a _master plan_ in action?!"

Aradia Medigo sits in the single corner of shade, listlessly watching events on deck. "Not really," she says, and that's that. God, _dead people_. Vriska rolls her eyes.

"Well, _okay_, in the meantime... we might as well set up these _fishing rods_," she declares absently, "so we can do _fishing_, I guess -" but before she's even finished, there's a heavy splash and Feferi's voice rings out once again.

"I got one!" she squeals from the water's surface, lifting a small snapper up for everyone to see. "Aren't they _adorable?"_

"Just one? Well, whatever," comes the reply. "Already doing better than Team Karkat. Ugh, do we need to get this hook down to you or something? Is that the point of the game?" Up on deck, Vriska starts to struggle with a fishing line, when Nepeta - suddenly, slowly - saunters through.

"Vriska," she purrs, stopping her with one weaponed palm. "I got this." And just like that, the small girl flings herself off-deck as well; hooks her feet to the railing, and swipes the fish straight out of Feferi's hands; throws it up high, and as she swings back up, strikes it right through the heart in one smooth motion.

"Ta-_daa_," she echoes, crouching neatly on the rail, skewered catch in hand. From below, Feferi's face starts to scrunch up.

"You - you _killed_ her!" she wails, bursting into tears; Vriska leans over the rail at her, flabbergasted.

"Yes, Feferi! That's the point! To _kill_ it!"

"_You never told me any of this!"_ the girl screeches further, splashing about in agony. "You didn't say I'd be part of your _murder regime!"_

"What's even the big deal? You went round killing fucking _lusii_ to feed your _mom!"_

"Yeah, but, they weren't so _cute!"_

The other trolls start to slink away guiltily as Feferi continues her tantrum. "I have sandwh-hich duties to attend to," definitely floats out from within the mumble. Vriska groans loudly and stares up to the sky.

"This whole trip is a fucking disaster."


End file.
